Analysis of PPARα-dependent and PPARα-independent transcript regulation following fenofibrate treatment of human endothelial cells

Fenofibrate is a synthetic ligand for the nuclear receptor peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR) alpha and has been widely used in the treatment of metabolic disorders, especially hyperlipemia, due to its lipid-lowering effect. The molecular mechanism of lipid-lowering is relatively well defined: an activated PPARα forms a PPAR–RXR heterodimer and this regulates the transcription of genes involved in energy metabolism by binding to PPAR response elements in their promoter regions, so-called “trans-activation”. In addition, fenofibrate also has anti-inflammatory and anti-athrogenic effects in vascular endothelial and smooth muscle cells. We have limited information about the anti-inflammatory mechanism of fenofibrate; however, “trans-repression” which suppresses production of inflammatory cytokines and adhesion molecules probably contributes to this mechanism. Furthermore, there are reports that fenofibrate affects endothelial cells in a PPARα-independent manner. In order to identify PPARα-dependently and PPARα-independently regulated transcripts, we generated microarray data from human endothelial cells treated with fenofibrate, and with and without siRNA-mediated knock-down of PPARα. We also constructed dynamic Bayesian transcriptome networks to reveal PPARα-dependent and -independent pathways. Our transcriptome network analysis identified growth differentiation factor 15 (GDF15) as a hub gene having PPARα-independently regulated transcripts as its direct downstream children. This result suggests that GDF15 may be PPARα-independent master-regulator of fenofibrate action in human endothelial cells.